The Things We Cling To

It’s interesting to see what people hold on to when they travel in foreign places. This thought came to my mind in Morocco, while shivering in bed after a bout of food poisoning. In one hand I held a lemon, scratching the skin with my nail and inhaling deeply, the scent bringing relief from waves of nausea. With the other, I held a fuzzy stuffed polar bear to my chest, running shaking fingers over the soft fur. My dad gave it to me just before I left, a friend for the road. It has been tucked into beds on three continents now, and on all the times someone else has made my bed – a maid, a family friend I stayed with – I’ve found him placed carefully on the pillow.

Other reminders of home found their way into my tightly packed bag. Luxuriously thick Crabtree & Evelyn hand lotion from my parents, the kind my mom puts on before bed that reminds me of hugging her goodnight, lip balm and a warm scarf from my sister, my favorite soft t-shirt and Smart Wool socks. And my iPod, of course – Lady GaGa has gotten me through some of my most trying travel experiences. I managed to fit in two jars of peanut butter, too, that delectable product which to me represents the pinnacle of American food innovation.

Food has an especially powerful hold on our memories of home. When I biked through South America during my first year of college, I delighted in buying bright yellow bags of Lay’s potato chips at the little stands we would pass along the road. I rarely ate potato chips at home, and definitely not Lay’s. But the familiar package represented a connection to my home and my identity. There I was, an American somewhere in rural Bolivia, crunching through these chips that somehow made me feel a more patriotic citizen of the United States than singing the national anthem at baseball games ever had. I came back with an intense love for ketchup, too, after wanting nothing more than a little cup of bright red sauce to accompany some yucca fries in a tiny coastal town in Peru. I had my choice of mayonnaise, lemon, vinegar, and hot sauce, but it wasn’t the same. 

         In Spain, near the end of a long summer of traveling, it was cornflakes. I couldn’t recall ever buying a box at home, or for that matter even eating a bowl, when I saw them at the grocery store in a little beach town north of Barcelona. Later I sat on the terrace of the B&B, overlooking the curve of sand where I’d spent the day relishing the baking sun and warm Mediterranean water. I must have eaten three bowls in a row, enjoying the distant familiarity of a food I never ate at home, yet made me feel closer to it. Something about the crunch of the cereal, floating in a spoonful of cold milk, tasted so American.

         To Germany and Belgium, I brought peanut butter and maple syrup. You can get it there, but it’s not the same. I savored each mouthful, knowing that when it was gone, it would be months before I’d have it again. Frozen pizza, too, was an ironic pleasure. We bought one on our last day in Berlin, laughing in the grocery store as we decided between four cheese and margherita, amused by the thought of two good cooks in a city with even better food, ending our stay with something so abundant back home. But it felt right.